. >> [inaudible] your sense of benghazi now, and a couple of things i want to discuss. was there discussion of putting marines at the compound to help secure it? what is your assessment and analysis of al qaeda and affiliate's or inspired organizations, their ability to assemble and generate an attack capability of this sort very rapidly? and for the united states to openly have no sense that it needed to provide the security to meet that potential threat. what does it say to you about al qaeda abilities in that region? >> first of all, with regards to benghazi, we responded to a request to provide a fast team to go into tripoli and provide additional security there, and we responded to that. at that point, for all intents and purposes, benghazi had been pretty much unoccupied by any of the diplomatic and other security personnel that were there. the main focus then was on tripoli and the embassy in tripoli, and that is what we responded to. with regards to al qaeda and its efforts in that area, i think it is fair to say that al qaeda, you know,ontinues, as i indicated,